Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday January 24, 2007 @11:12PM
from the the-most-common-elements-in-the-universe-are-hydrogen-and-stupidity dept.

coondoggie writes "For the second year running, no U.S. city has made the list of the world's top Intelligent Communities of 2007, as selected by global think tank Intelligent Community Forum. The ICF selects the Intelligent Community list based on how advanced the communities are in deploying broadband, building a knowledge-based workforce, combining government and private-sector "digital inclusion," fostering innovation and marketing economic development."

Even though the capital of Canada is Ottawa, Ontario, some people have increasingly been trying to include Hull, Quebec and now Gatineau (an amalgamated city including Hull) as part of the capital of Canada. I haven't heard the government saying anything about it, and in fact they have been locating federal government buildings in Gatineau. Personally, I would rather they didn't until talk of Quebec separation ceased. A lot of people outside of Quebec see it as an appeasement to Quebecers (I purposely di

Could you enlighten little more about the connection between Nokia and Estonia? It's true that many Nokias partners and contractors moved their manufacturing businesses to Estonia and even R&D units, but if I recall correctly, Nokia itself didn't build any manufacturing or R&D units to the country.

To this day, the only place where Nokia has had very deep impact on whole society has been Finland and in here the impact has been concentrated primarily to Helsinki, Tampere and Oulu.

There's a lot more educational content on YouTube than you'll ever find on most American TV channels.

There are numerous foreign language courses on YouTube, for instance. There's a lot of foreign language content, as well, which is very valuable when trying to learn another language. In America, you'll rarely find anything other than English or Spanish being used in the vast, vast majority of TV programming.

There are also a number of instructional videos that teach one how to play various musical instruments. Again, that's something you just won't see on American TV.

If all you watch on YouTube is Family Guy clips and anime, no, you probably won't become any more intelligent. But if you use YouTube to access content that you'd never see on American TV, then you likely will become wiser, more talented, and better aware of the world around you.

There's a lot more educational content on YouTube than you'll ever find on most American TV channels.

As a percentage, I would not be so sure - consider broadcast channels alone, you have PBS and basically, everything else.

Now think that for every YouTube video teaching latin there are probably about 10k videos of people taking hits to the groin.

Looking at what is popular vs. what is availiable on YouTube yields a very different conclusion than the one you come to. For those that wish it, YouTube is a great educational resource. But like any tool infused by the Power Of The Internet, it is also capible of being the ultimate BoobTube. It's basically TV amplified and magnified, and I'm not sure really all that much better or worse since it's even more a product of the viewers.

Here's a novel idea: the same content, and sometimes even better is available at your local library. Yet I don't see the number and quality of libraries mentioned in their measure of intelligence. People have been using their brains before YouTube too, you know.

Language? I learned English from tapes and books, and then from a teacher. I got taught French by my grandma using Pif comics. You don't need a video to learn a new language, you just need to hear and read it. Even if (for whatever psychiatric reason) you're absolutely _only_ able to do it over the Internet, you don't absolutely need broadband for that: to learn to read you only need a freakin' ASCII file, and to hear it you need an MP3. Trust me, you can squeeze those even through an analog modem if you really want to, especially since you don't need to stream them in real time: you can download them in advance just as well.

Learn to play an instrument? How about getting one of the about a million books on the topic? Again, chances are your local library carries several. I know a ton of people who've learned to play the guitar without broadband.

Etc.

Plus, as the unused libraries prove, there's a heck of a difference between something being available and people actually using it. Just because a community has broadband, it doesn't mean automatically everyone starts using it to learn stuff. Except if by "learn" you mean, "my word, I didn't know a double anal penetration was even possible.";) Lots of, ahem, "educational" videos on _that_ kinda topic.

Now I'm not against broadband or anything, but measuring a community's intelligence by the available megabits per second is at best PR trolling (seeing as the "independent think tank" is actually just a lobby group to push for more subsidized broadband), and at worst genuine techo-utopian stupidity.

Even if we're to spend tax money to improve intelligence (a good idea, by all means), I'm still waiting for any study to show that broadband is the best return on investment. How about investing half that amount in improving the schools, for example? A good teacher can help more than just upgrading someone's internet connection. How about, political correctness and feel-good education be damned, someone actually make a class out of the nerdiest kids who actually want to learn? And I mean really learn stuff, not get some watered-down bullshit and "brain gym" pseudo-education.

Are kids that much more likely to learn foreign languages well on the Internet than from a teacher, for example? Really? Because so far I've seen people even forgetting whatever proper English they knew after a couple of years on MMOs. The English I could learn on, say, City of Heroes, is of the caliber of, "soz m8, g2g, got skewl 2moz". (Translation for those who aren't fluent in l33t: "sorry mate, got to go, got school tomorrow." Yeah, I know, it made me go cross-eyed trying to decode it too.) Genuine quote off one of the UK servers. No kidding. I swear to God, someone actually typed that abhomination.

There's a whole generation by now who's learned to write badly not even in the name of typing speed, but out of some idiotic notion that writing "skewl" instead of "school" is somehow cool, hip, elite, or whatever. And it's contagious. People who _are_ capable of writing proper English and typing fast enough, end up getting that idea too. I was shocked to discover that a middle-aged mid-level manager I know had started to type like that on a MMO. That's broadband intelligence for you.

Yeah, they didn't base it on something like, say, robotics [youtube.com], because then the US would come out ahead. I've noticed that broadband deployment along with high school math quizzes seem to be popular with these 'the US is falling behind' studies and I'm not even American.

P2P is an important contribution. The longer we have it, and the more entrenched it becomes, then the harder it will become for the government here to enact draconian copyright laws like your DMCA. Yes, let's criminalize in one law what another law expressly allows.

That is the stupidity. The other stupidity is that "you the people" allow it.

I know it gives mychildren access to research tools they never would have had. Wikipedia, HowStuffWorks, and other similar sites have taught my children a great d

"Ottawa is the stupidest, most horrible, most backwards, most desolate, and most erroneously self-important shithole I've ever been to. Look at the layout of the city - tell me how it was possible to make every trip in this city so circuitous?"

Och aye! Have ye some haggis with a wee dram or five? Nah, ye wurr tellin' me about this fiber you want installed. You wanted how much for it? Ach, you need more scotch. What was that ye said? Ye're sure ye don't want me to send a truck'o haggis to yer headquarters, then? Aboot this price. More scotch for the lad! Can't ye see he's parched! There. Ach, the piper has started his roonds. Ye look pale, lad. Have some more scotch, it'll do ye the world'o good. Gotta go? Come, lad, let's finish this deal. So you

The Intelligent Community Forum is basically rating cities on how much they consume the services of the IT people who make up the forum. Think of it as marketing for the IT 'Guild.'

It has little to do with the actual overall quality of a community in anyway except the dollar amount of the IT salaries they pay out of tax money. Though, I suppose, slashdot would be the place for this sort of thing.

This is not an objective measure of how "intelligent" a community is, it's an objective measure of what broadband policies will make the global technocratic elite supporters of the institute the most money. And the "Digital Inclusiveness" blurb means "How can we get more money from taxpayers to line our pockets?"

But I'm sure they appreciate the free advertising. In fact, I would say that was worth $25,000 of free advertizing for them, which means that now Slashdot will have to register as a paid lobbyist. Oh wait, that bill was defeated.

How typical: you pick what criteria you think are important, define them as "intelligence", and then determine that everybody else is less intelligent than you are. Whatever, guys. As long as you stop short of the genocide I really don't care what you think.

(squints eyes)... With all that smart talk, I bet you're that guy in the funny pajamas that broke my house. I bet you don't even have your tattoo either.

I have a feeling I'll be seeing you on the next Monday Night Rehabilitation.

Like most government programs, they start out with nice intentions but fail terribly when implemented. The US doesn't have an education service. Maybe we have a mandatory babysitting service, or perhaps a temporary incarceration service, or even a parent/youth entertainment service, but not an education service. The thing that is most sickening though is that no matter how badly education coerced at other peoples expense fails, ther are sill mobs who cling to the concept as if their very life depended on

I wasn't really surprised to see Tallinn, Estonia on the list. I went to Tallinn back in '97. Now, personally, I don't care for the friggin' cold places like that (Estonia is within swimming distance of Finland, if you happen to be a seal). Back in '97, and keep in mind, this was only 6 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Estonia was kicking our butts in cell phone technology. What is wrong with the U.S. that this little former Soviet republic in such a short time just started beating our pants off technologically. Granted, they got a lot of help from Finland (their languages are very similar and there's some history between the two). Good for them for improving their lot in life significantly. Too bad people in the U.S. aren't very concerned about improving their own lot in life. If they were, maybe they'd elect a president who was concerned with their lot in life as well.

That's nothing, Paco! My *apartment* beats the flying fuck out of every nation on the planet: 100% broadband penetration. 100% employed in the IT field. 8:1 computer to user ratio. All this despite having a GDP several orders of magnitude smaller than any nation on the planet.

Estonia's land area is smaller than 41 of the 50 US states. It has a lower population tha 40 of the 50 US states. Maybe it would be wise to consider the challenges in deploying a cellular service to a massive country vs. to a tiny country.

Finally you ought to consider what it really means to improve your life.

If you want talk "beating pants off technologically" you might want to take a look see about which countries make high performance micro processors.

Is that the US has a great wire based communication system whereas often nations with great cellular service don't. You can get a wired phone line basically anywhere for rather cheap. That phone line is going to be highly reliable and connected. Thus there's less need for replacing it with something new. I'm not saying cellular offers no advantages, I'm just saying there's no pressing need. Land lines work. However in many nations that's not the case, they never rolled out good wire infrastructure. Mass wir

The reason Estonia advanced its cellular technology so fast was because the existing Soviet era landline system was a mess and inadequate for the communication needs of the country. People had been on waiting lists for phones for years. When further investment in the infrastructure was available, cellphones were already on the scene so it made sense to focus there instead of on an outdated system.

Firstly, this study is based on a bunch of arbitrary points of evaluation. They could have as easily decided a cities intelligence based on the number of car accidents or the number of fire hydrants.I'd like to see a study that shows which cities have the most number of universities and the number of successful startups and successful large companies in it.

How about which cities have the highest number of employed people with degrees...

I can think of a lot of ways to measure a cities intelligence, however

I can think of a lot of ways to measure a cities intelligence, however measuring their broadband penetration isn't one of them.

Broadband penetration is a good thing and worthy of points in the city's favor. ANY Internet access is worthy of points. However, far more important is counting the number of lottery tickets sold in the city. If it's greater than 100, deduct all points for universities or broadband penetration. People who buy stuff advertised in spam should be cause for castration of the entire

Now, I'm currently stuck back living in Ottawa (which I utterly detest despite being my "home town"), and there are lottery kiosks all over the place, probably more than 100 of them in the city, to say nothing of tickets sold. Therefore, these people don't know basic math.

That's an absurd remark. Did it ever occur to you that some people play the lottery for fun? I've certainly been to casinos a handful of times, and while I expect to lose money each time I go, I still do put some down and enjoy my time the

I'd like to see a study that shows which cities have the most number of universities and the number of successful startups and successful large companies in it.How about which cities have the highest number of employed people with degrees...

I agree, that would be much more intersting, so I Googled for it. Didn't find one for cities, but I did find it for countries. Go wild [nationmaster.com].

The criteria for an intelligent, technologically-advanced society evolve over time. Two hundred years ago, no one had phones. That doesn't mean that cultures of that era were dumb, but now we'd definitely view phones as a hallmark of a modern civilization.

Sorry, anyone who thinks that Cleveland is the most "intelligent" city in the U.S....probably lives in Cleveland. I'm sure there are some intelligent people there, but my experience (20 years of it) was that it was a mostly-dead rust belt city full of drunks and young people who just wanted to move to new york, la, or san francisco. The only other city on this list that I've been to is the ontario area, which, while decent, was far from one of the most "intelligent" cities.
How many of these "intelligent"

The only other city on this list that I've been to is the ontario area, which, while decent, was far from one of the most "intelligent" cities. How many of these "intelligent" cities have fostered innovative new companies in the last century? How many play host to world class universities? More innovative products come out every year from cities like Tokyo and New York than all the other cities on the list combined.

I assume you're referring to Waterloo. Waterloo is home to one fine technology university

Causally related, but the topic was introduced by a troll, so I prefer to reintroduce it more seriously... The topic is the problems with public education in the States as a contributing factor to the decline of America.

Public education works fine in many countries--the ones that take the future seriously enough. Mostly that means funding the public education system with a better economic model than property taxes and bond-based borrowing. Educating your citizens is a great investment and those educated citizens become great assets for any civilization above hunting and gathering. Well, actually even the hunters and gatherers can benefit from knowledge of what to hunt and what not to gather, but they're too busy trying to stay alive to worry about public schools.

My own experiences are with the American and Japanese public education systems. Just to deal with the easy topic first, the Japanese education system is quite good, and the bulk of it is public. The main distortions are in the private senior high schools and the cram schools. However, before you start crying about the relatively minor imperfections (compared to the present state of American public education), you better remember the Japanese educational system was to a great degree patterned on American models, both in Meiji times and again after the war. (And yes, I know Japan didn't have a winner this year, either, but it's the data point I have. However, that mostly disproves the OT's (Original Troll's) point blaming public education.)

For the American system, my experience is much more complicated. At the low levels I was in extremely good public schools through high school--but in a district that was one of the richest in the country at the time. I think we were No.2 for the entire nation on a per/student basis. Just an accident that the entire large area had been zoned residential, and those residential property taxes were being collected, but it was mostly vacant lots. Over the years the houses got built, the students arrived, the per/student money dropped to an average level, and the public schools dropped too. It's not the case that money always makes a difference, but it certainly is a major influence, and many of my important school experiences would not have happened except that my schools had the money at that time. That point is reinforced by my experience at one of the richest public universities, which was an awful school. My other degree was from a smaller private university that I regard as vastly superior to the enormous state school. Money isn't enough to counteract a staunchly conservative educational philosophy dedicated to forcing the students into the smallest possible mental boxes.

I think you're ignoring the very large role that parents play in any student's academic performance. I went to school in one of the poorest school districts in the US and you still had plenty of kids going on to ivy league and comparable universities. By the same token my s.o. grew up in one of the richest school districts in the US and she knew plenty of people who dropped out of high school or didn't make it through college and even now plenty of her little sister's friends are completely under-achieving

My own experiences are with the American and Japanese public education systems. Just to deal with the easy topic first, the Japanese education system is quite good, and the bulk of it is public. The main distortions are in the private senior high schools and the cram schools. However, before you start crying about the relatively minor imperfections (compared to the present state of American public education), you better remember the Japanese educational system was to a great degree patterned on American mod

I won't deny that there were British and other European influences. One of the Japanese sources I just dug up actually gives primary credit to the French and Germans, though I thought the German influence was rather concentrated in the medical education area. However, I feel that the American influence was predominant according to most of the books I've read on that period. Unfortunately, I'm embarrassed to say I can't recall the name of the very prominent American educator who spent several years in Japan

The criteria that needs to be met for a city to be considered "intelligent" seems more like criteria that would need to be met to be considered "advanced." Last I checked, broadband, "digital inclusion," etc... have nothing to do with intelligence -- just technological advancement and modernity.

The PTC conference, which had 4,000 attendees, features information and communications technologies, public policy initiatives, business development strategies and industry forecasts from an Asia Pacific point of view.Well, at least they're clearly stating that they wish to act in the interests of offshoring, specifically to places that are friendly to worker abuse or areas that intend to treat businesses as godly entities.
The glut of fiber capacity led to plummeting prices . just at the time when d

When I read the headline, I thought they were talking about how intelligent the residents were, but no:

The ICF selects the Intelligent Community list based on how advanced the communities are in deploying broadband, building a knowledge-based workforce, combining government and private-sector "digital inclusion," fostering innovation and marketing economic development.

You are exactly correct. While the rate on certain things, they have not weighted various aspects of providing or consuming those services. This lack of weighting just makes the report a set of statistics that should be ignored for the most part.

I don't think you're trolling... There seems to be many people on/. who don't like to think of their country as anything other than the "greatest". I guess having that jammed down your throat since you're born could have something to do with that. Cognitive dissonance. Tasty.

First of all, measuring broadband penetration does make a statement with regards to the effectiveness of the organizations that actually implemented the amount of penetration accomplished. Since there tends to be a correlation between intelligent business decisions and effective business operation, an argument for intelligence can be made based on how successfully a community could implement something like broadband penetration (and bear in mind that this is without regard to how widely adopted broadband

I think instead of turning this into an I'm better than you kind of situation how about you attack the people that think they have the right to decide what cities are intelegent depending on how many people have broadband.

The moment you hear terms like "digital inclusion" - and Ottawa is listed as a "great city" by any measure (and Ottawa is my hometown and current residence, but Ottawa is a fetid shithole that most people escape from when they turn 18) - then you know the whole thing is a bullshit waste of money.

In all fairness, though, Waterloo deserves any kudos it gets, even from a source as questionable as this one. Waterloo is a great city.

Although I also like Waterloo (and I do live there) I think Ottawa has a lot to offer that Waterloo does not. For example, Ottawa has access to lakes, real skiing and cottages whereas Waterloo is at least a 90 minute drive from the closest lake and (real) ski hill. Try comparing the transit system and Ottawa wins hands down. Ottawa also has great museums whereas Waterloo does not. To top it off you can't even find a good Mexican restaurant in Waterloo:-). Granted the price of homes is higher in Ottawa b

Perhaps because like any capital of a nation the city is not 'full' of politicians. As an Ottawa resident I can attest to the fact that the federal political 'scene' is not some overpowering force you can't ignore if you drive down the 417. I would agree that Ottawa is not the best place to live if you are a teenager as it's not exactly a party town, but if you are over the age of 25 and enjoy quality of life over hip martini bars then it's a great city.